Posted on 08/18/2012 2:50:53 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
LOL, yeah, great reasoning there.
The 1911 is not a finesse weapon, it is a both eyes open, lead down range quickly type combat weapon. It needs to be man handled to be effective. Don't treat it timidly.
You 1911 without sights is still a damned good weapon.
it was the Spanish-American War, not the “Philippine-American War.” .......................................... Uh? Then why didn’t they call it the model 98’ colt automatic?
Love it, we are going to use the same weapon that great,great, great, grampa used against Poncho Villa. Hey if it works, don’t try and fix it. Just rig it for an extended magazine.
“If they were going to replace the 1911 with a Beretta they should have gone with the 40 call Beretta 96F.”
The 40 didn’t exist when they made the switch.
No, but then again my manufacturer doesn’t see the need as so important that they’re fitting decockers to the new ones.
"The Browning pistol design was formally adopted by the US Army on March 29, 1911, and thus became known officially as the Model 1911. The US Navy and US Marine Corps adopted the Browning-designed pistol in 1913."
"The pistol was designed to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Army, which, during its campaign against the Moros in Philippines, had seen its trusty .38 revolver to be incapable of stopping attackers. An Ordnance Board headed by Col. John T. Thompson (inventor of the Thompson sub-machine-gun) and Col. Louis A. La Garde, had reached the conclusion that the army needed a .45" caliber cartridge, to provide adequate stopping power. In the mean time, J. Browning who was working for Colt, had already designed an autoloader pistol, around a cartridge similar to contemporary .38 Super (dimension-wise). When the Army announced its interest in a new handgun, Browning re-engineered this handgun to accommodate a .45" diameter cartridge of his own design (with a 230 gr. FMJ bullet), and submitted the pistol to the Army for evaluation."
I still have my Dad’s Government Model .45 automatic that he carried in WWII (it was a civilian model presented to him by the family before he headed off to D-Day).
Don’t know who thinks the M1911 is a cannon. Doesn’t recoil that much and the noise is mild compared to some magnums. An all-steel chunk of gun. Undeniable knockdown power and that’s a fact.
IIRC, lots of Army Rangers & airborne/airmobile folks carry M1911s. Can’t argue with success.
While I am not much of a fan of the the 1911, I think it is a great thing for the USMC to replace the 9mm Beretta with the much harder hitting 1911. Just like in the racing world there is no replacement for displacement and the 45acp displaces a lot more “stuff” than a 9mm.
Note to trisham: George Patton was usually photographed wearing a pair of revolvers. A nickle plated Colt.45 SAA and Smith & Wesson .357 mag. also nickle plated. Both with ivory grips. Patton was asked about his “pearl” handled pistols once and promptly answered that they were ivory handles. Pearl handles were for pimps and fagots.
It's a matter of user preference, not safety. CZ still makes the 75B (no decocker) and the 75BD (decocker). You can buy a brand new one (75B) just off the factory floor without a decocker. Certainly, if they were such a critical safety feature, CZ-USA's lawyers would have shut down production years ago.
The Army did not know that, and 15 years fighting the Moro only confused them more.
“At the time US troops were armed with either .30 caliber Krag or Springfield bolt-action rifles and .38 caliber double-action revolvers. While the .30 caliber rifles proved effective in stopping the attackers, the US troop’s handguns demonstrated an unnerving lack of stopping power, resulting in numerous reports of Moro warriors absorbing multiple pistol bullets while they continued to hack away at the Americans. Obviously the US troops’ morale suffered badly in this situation.
The combat pistol situation became so acute that old stocks of Model 1873 Colt revolvers in 45 caliber, many of which dated back to the Plains Indian Wars were returned to active service, where they quickly demonstrated a much better track record of stopping an attacker with one well-placed shot.
The battlefield experience against the Moros resulted in the famous Thompson-LeGarde tests by the US Military in 1904. In these tests a variety of military cartridges of the day were tested for their penetration, ‘stopping ability’ and energy transfer, using both live and dead cattle at the target medium. While somewhat subjective by modern standards, the tests resulted in an official recommendation “…that a bullet, which will have the shock effect and stopping effect at short ranges necessary for a military pistol or revolver, should have a caliber not less than .45.”
I really, really, really want one!
Or a Kimber.
Bought my first .45 Colt for $45 USD in Viet Nam on the black market. Was on Swift Boats and they did not issue side arms except for a .38 revolver the boat officer carried.
I was on the boarding team and had to jump from our boat to some rickety, slimy, filthy wooden boat often in heavy seas. Finally got tired of trying to do this with an AR15 so bought my own .45. Shot the heck out of it and sold it to another Swifty when I left...for $45 bucks.
What the hell does that mean? Any weapon that requires more weight of effort to fire than the weight of the actual weapon *requires* a certain finesse.
Nobody sober has called it Short & Weak in ten years.
I love my 1911.
I’d like to get one of these new Colts, too, to add to my 2 Kimbers: a Custom TLE II and a Eclipse Target II.
The Colt sounds like it’ll take some serious punishment, too.
I think you are right. John Browning’s birthday should be a national holiday. I am serious about that.
During WWI, Browning charged the government exactly $1 for a machine gun which was worth many millions just in royalties.
Browning mentioned that his son was over there fighting (incidentally trying out the BAR) and many other people’s sons were doing the same.
He was a real patriot.
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